[tips] Re: Music lessons help kids improve brain development, memory: study

[Rick Froman]

Jean-Marc Perreault wrote: Another interesting observation is about how quickly people become "tired" to hear about how correlation cannot/should not be taken as causation. I am usually quick to point it out to friends and relatives, but it seems that it is having a lesser effect as time goes by. I wonder why they are becoming less sensitive to the argument, rather than more sophisticated to it (which is the end purpose, after all...).   Christopher Green replied:   Claiming some simple way to solve some difficult problem is a lot more welcome than showing that the claim, appealing as its conclusion may be, is bogus.   I note:   Even worse – we are often precluded by scientific reasoning from saying that a causal conclusion based on correlational research is bogus. We have to say that it is one among many possible competing explanations. For example, maybe A actually does cause B. Or B might cause A. Or, any number of third factors (C) may explain the relationship without there being a direct cause-effect relationship between the variables. The unfortunate outcome of some of my lectures on correlation-causation has been the belief that a correlational result means that A cannot be causing B.   It will never be popular to discount a causal explanation and replace it with “maybes”. As Major Payne once said, “Don't push the ‘maybes’, baby.”   Rick   Dr. Rick Froman, Chair Division of Humanities and Social Sciences Professor of Psychology John Brown University 2000 W. University Siloam Springs, AR  72761 [EMAIL PROTECTED] (479) 524-7295 http://www.jbu.edu/academics/hss/faculty/rfroman.asp "Pete, it's a fool that looks for logic in the chambers of the human heart." - Ulysses Everett McGill From: Christopher D. Green [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, September 22, 2006 1:43 PM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: [tips] Re: Music lessons help kids improve brain development, memory: study   Jean-Marc Perreault wrote: Another interesting observation is about how quickly people become"tired" to hear about how correlation cannot/should not be taken ascausation. I am usually quick to point it out to friends and relatives, but it seems that it is having a lesser effect as time goes by. I wonder why they are becoming less sensitive to the argument, rather than more sophisticated to it (which is the end purpose, after all...). Christopher Green replied:  Claiming some simple way to solve some difficult problem is a lot more welcome than showing that the claim, appealing as its conclusion may be, is bogus. --- To make changes to your subscription go to: http://acsun.frostburg.edu/cgi-bin/lyris.pl?enter=tips&text_mode=0&lang=english